After being kidnapped and transported to a strange world, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman unite to form a resistance and lead the planet to freedom.
Justice League: Warworld is the newest installment to the Tomorrowverse and well it sure is a DC animated movie that most certainly exists.
I hate having to repeat myself over and over again when one of these movies comes out, but once again this yet another DC animated movie that has some decent ideas but executes them in the most forgettable way possible.
The whole premise here is that Wonder Woman is in the old west, Batman is in a primordial Barbarian clan and Superman is in a 1930s mystery, interesting stuff yet the movie barely does anything with these ideas. It goes about as deep as a house tour where the guide just says “this is my living room” and doesn’t say anything else.
I guess the different styles are kind of neat and the voice acting is actually pretty decent, Darren Criss in particular does a solid job as Superman, plus I did enjoy Ike Amadi as Martian Manhunter. But really outside of that there is truly nothing here that is very memorable, granted I do think it’s a lot better than some of the last few installments in the Tomorrowverse. As this one genuinely tries to make it’s ideas work and there’s definitely a lot more effort put into this one.
It’s just mainly the writing that really holds Warworld back from being anything very memorable or having it’s ideas being executed well, the movie doesn’t do nearly as much with it’s characters as it should have. They ultimately feel like action figures being moved along in different scenery rather than actual well written characters.
Overall Justice League: Warworld is definitely one of the better installments of the Tomorrowverse but given the quality of the Tomorrowverse so far that’s really not saying all that much.
Justice League: Warworld is available on all VOD platforms.
Taking matters into his own hands, Detective Bob Hightower tries to infiltrate an evil cult to save his kidnapped daughter and avenge the murder of his wife.
God is a Bullet is directed by Nick Cassavetes (director of The Notebook, Alpha Dog, Other Woman, My Sister’s Keeper and a few others), the movie is based on the 1998 novel of the same name.
Going to be honest here there isn’t a whole lot to say about this one, I will clear up that for some reason a lot of sources say that God is a Bullet is 156 minutes long which is not the case it runs for 2 hours (I’ve actually been told that the movie is 156 minutes long but only the theater version I’m not sure what is right since I didn’t see it in theaters but I’ll put this here just in case) which is still a bit too long especially considering how dreadful the pacing is with this movie. But I thought that should be cleared up either way.
Anyway the acting and the filming are by far the highlights of the movie, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is a pretty solid lead but the one who stands out is Maika Monroe once again she really shows her talent and completely takes over any scene she’s in really well. Everyone else did a pretty decent job but really nothing to write home about.
The trashy violent tone the movie is going for is quite interesting and actually pretty effective during first half of the movie, but slowly starts to get a bit old mainly due to just how repetitive the movie gets along with how dreadful the pacing is. It truly felt like a chore sitting through the last 30 or so minutes of the movie.
Honestly the main problem here is God is a Bullet is really nothing more than a revenge action thriller trying to be way more than it really is, it’s a simple enough premise that drags on for way too long and really doesn’t say or do anything very investing. It’s a well made and well acted movie but that’s really where it ends.
God is a Bullet is available on all VOD platforms.
Owen Browning is a straight-laced bank manager about to marry the love of his life, Parker. When his bank is held up by the Ghost Bandits during his wedding week, he believes his future in-laws who just arrived in town are the infamous outlaws.
I’ll give The Out-Laws this…it’s better than Tyler Spindel’s last two Netflix films The Wrong Missy and Father Of The Year. However that is really not saying much when you think back to how bad those two movies really were.
I can at the very least say with The Out-Laws there was a small level of attempt (and I mean very small) to try and make something work but that’s mainly through Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin, who are mainly funny due to them seeming like they don’t want to be on set (outside of a few moments). Adam DeVine like in most cases comes off as very unlikable almost immediately, his performance is extremely annoying spewing so much bad writing that is only made more insufferable due to his dreadful performance. Nina Dobrev isn’t horrible but she’s barely given anything to work with that could make into something interesting and compelling.
The writing is what seals the movie’s fate, it’s the exact sort of comedy you would expect from a Happy Madison and Netflix crossover. It’s the type of comedy that is so desperate for a laugh that it will just throw random, bizarre or flat out obvious joke that the viewer saw coming from a mile away and hope it sticks. If anything the only interesting about this movie is how anyone looked at the script and Adam DeVine’s performance and thought this was somehow a good idea.
An undercover CIA operative gets stuck in hostile territory in Afghanistan after his mission is exposed. Accompanied by his translator, he must fight enemy combatants as he tries to reach an extraction point in Kandahar.
Ric Roman Waugh and Gerard Butler team up for yet another action thriller movie this time Kandahar. It should be worth pointing out that Kandahar is based on the true story of a former military intelligence officer named Mitchell LaFortune.
Given this year’s recently released movie Plane which Gerard Butler was also in, I really wanted to like Kandahar but unfortunately this one really fell short in a lot of categories. I will say that Gerard Butler is quite great and the bond between Gerard Butler and Navid Negahban is undoubtedly great. There’s also some action scenes that are quite great as well particularly a night time action scene that stands out.
Other then that however the rest of the movie is a bit of a chore to get through, there’s way too much slow pacing, really not enough moments to get the viewer invested in this true story. Plus it quite honestly feels a bit more of the same thing Ric Roman Waugh has done previously, only that there aren’t as many action scenes and it isn’t as investing.
I have seen comparisons between Kandahar and Guy Richie’s The Covenant which released earlier this year. While I don’t necessarily think they are fully comparable, there is one big similarity both involve translators and showing how important they are. But much like The Covenant where I said in my review they really didn’t do much with the translators, Kandahar also doesn’t do much with the translators.
Overall Kandahar isn’t a bad movie, there’s a lot to like it just falls short when it comes to wanting to stand out. It quickly reminds you of better movies that already exist.
When a headstrong street orphan unwittingly taps into hidden powers, he discovers he might be the only person alive who can protect a reincarnated goddess who was sent to watch over humanity.
Before we get into things first a bit of history. Knights Of The Zodiac is based off of the anime series that ran from 1986-1989, as I said before in the past in some of reviews. I’m nowhere near as big with Anime as I once was but there are still a couple that I really like. One anime that I honestly completely forgot about was Knights Of The Zodiac, it wasn’t because of the quality or anything it’s just that I hadn’t seen or heard about it in years. I do remember watching a bit of the series when I was kid on Toonami and I remember liking it decently enough.
Apparently they made a 3D adaption called Knights Of The Zodiac: Saint Seiya which has 2 seasons, season 1 (2019-2020) and season 2 (2022), I haven’t seen the 3D series but from what I’ve read and heard it’s quite awful, but I guess they wanted to push it even further and bring in a live action movie.
Knights Of The Zodiac (2023) has very little going for it, honestly what got me interested was that Madison Iseman was casted, I loved her in the recent I Know What You Did Last Summer series (despite the flaws) unfortunately she’s not very good here and that’s mainly due to just how much of a mess script really is. Honestly the same can be said with a majority of the cast, they are given very little to work with and the only one who somewhat can get it to work is Famke Jansen, she definitely delivers the best moments of the movie but it’s unfortunately not quite enough to save the show.
In terms of story the movie really focuses on making this terrible origin story a very common problem that a lot of live action anime movies tend to have, I get it’s probably the best way to go about it when you are trying to introduce these characters to audiences who don’t watch anime. However there is no reason why they should always be this poorly written and this empty when comes to characters. Knights Of The Zodiac takes everything that was liked about the characters and turns them into very lifeless characters who are about as interesting as cardboard, as far as I’m aware this origin story that they made had absolutely nothing to do with the manga which makes this all the more puzzling as to why they even bothered in the first place.
I really wish there was more for me to say here, but a lot of this really speaks for itself. Knights Of The Zodiac is yet another horrendous live action anime adaption that both fans of the manga and anime plus people who have never even seen the series will absolutely dislike. Anything that was interesting about the original series is just not here at all, be sure to avoid this one.
Knights Of The Zodiac is available on all VOD platforms.
Back from the brink of death, commando Tyler Rake embarks on a dangerous mission to save a ruthless gangster’s imprisoned family.
I never thought Netflix’s first great film of 2023 would be Extraction 2, especially considering that the first movie did not work for me at all. But here we are I guess.
While Extraction 2 doesn’t really introduce anything new, what it does do is massively improve on what the first movie did wrong. Heck even with some of the positives from the first movie Extraction 2 improves on those as well. The action scenes went from being just okay to actually quite well done, especially with more graphic kills as well that are quite effective.
Chris Hemsworth is of course quite great here and works well with the rest of the cast who are also quite strong. The story is still a bit of a mess and the writing is very uneven at times. However it’s mostly the surprising amount of entertainment that Extraction 2 has that makes it work.
There’s so many fun stunts and action scenes that really combine well together that truly create something genuinely exciting and pretty large in scale as well, speaking of which the atmosphere and scale in this film is miles better than the first. Extraction for some reason did not have a lot of atmosphere outside of a handful of moments, Extraction 2 however keeps it’s atmosphere throughout the film and really nails down it’s scale as well.
While Extraction 2 doesn’t do anything new and the similarities between it and it’s predecessor are undeniable, I always appreciate when filmmakers (in this case Sam Hargrave) take the criticisms they were given and improve on them with a follow up. So i definitely have to give credit where credit is due, I say check this one out.
The past comes back to haunt Bert Kreischer when a murderous mobster tries to kidnap him to atone for his crimes. With help from his estranged father, Bert must retrace the steps of his younger self as a sociopathic crime family goes to war.
The Machine is based on Bert Kreischer’s true story stand up routine which was turned into a feature film, the whole idea is that the whole true Russian mobsters story is back to haunt Kreischer 23 years later. Which sounds like a good idea on paper but in execution really misses the mark quite a lot.
Bert Kreischer plays a fictionalized version of himself and at times he can be entertaining as well as Mark Hamill who gets to play a different type of role which is nice. Hamill and Kreischer are by far the best parts about the movie and actually work well together, the action is at least serviceable with a few surprisingly fun scenes that I’m actually quite shocked the movie used.
The problems come in with the writing and a majority of the humor, there’s only so many times I can say that a movie isn’t funny. But that really applies here which is unfortunate because the set up is decent, the execution however is completely lacking. Heck when the movie is focused more on the action it has so much more style and is far more interesting than when it tries to be funny.
Worlds collide when the Flash uses his superpowers to travel back in time to change the events of the past. However, when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, he becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation. With no other superheroes to turn to, the Flash looks to coax a very different Batman out of retirement and rescue an imprisoned Kryptonian — albeit not the one he’s looking for.
The Flash is the fifth superhero film that has come out this year, the genre has definitely had it’s ups and downs. With Guardians Of The Galaxy VOL. 3 and Across The Spider-Verse being fantastic films. While Shazam: Fury Of The Gods and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania being terrible. The Flash is yet another example of being a complete and total mess.
I’ll start with the positives because surprisingly enough there’s a decent amount that was actually pretty solid, the first half of The Flash I have to say was quite great, while there was terrible dialogue which I’ll get to in a bit. There was at least some level of attempt to try and tell an interesting story about Barry Allen (played by Ezra Miller) and his mother Nora Allen (played by Maribel Verdú), it truly felt like the movie was going to have meaningful character development. There were even touching moments that actually were genuinely filled with heart.
There were a few performances that were pretty solid which are Michael Keaton as Batman and Sasha Calle, it’s great Keaton returning as Batman (even if it’s clearly nostalgia bait) he does the best he can with a very lacking script, it’s mostly his talent as an actor that pushes the performance to the finish line. I will say that the ideas they did with Batman in the film were genuinely interesting they were just not given a whole lot of time despite the movie being 2 hours and 24 minutes. Sasha Calle did not get a whole lot of time but she absolutely made what she could with it. She shows a very different angle to Supergirl we haven’t really seen in a film before, she’s genuinely interesting and she gives quite a strong performance. It’s intimidating and really makes the viewer quickly engaged into her character. Sasha Calle absolutely deserved a far better film and I truly do hope going forward that they consider bringing her back in the future.
Now we get into everything else that really just felt like a complete mess of ideas rolled into a ball and thrown at the nearest wall, the whole multiverse stuff is just not interesting here at all, there’s been talk online about the cameos. Without going on a full rant about them since many people have already said pretty much everything that needs to be said about the topic, I’ll just say this…it’s garbage and the CGI is atrocious (that goes for the big battle scene featuring Zod) how anyone looked at this and gave it the okay is beyond me. Anyway the multiverse stuff includes Zod which leads into one of the main problems with the movie, the Zod stuff is uninteresting and really serves as nothing more then for the movie to say “hey remember this guy well he’s back!!”
This pretty much goes for the last half of the movie as well, which is a shame because there are some genuinely touching moments towards the end that you really wish the movie actually had centered around rather than nostalgia bait and a messy multiverse story. Ezra Miller’s performance is just not anything noteworthy at all outside of the fact Miller plays different variations of Barry Allen. While Miller does make some of the emotional moments work, everything else falls flat unfortunately.
Overall while The Flash isn’t as bad as I expected, it’s most certainly not good either. It’s a complete and total mess that has way too many flaws that take away from the positives.
Optimus Prime and the Autobots take on their biggest challenge yet. When a new threat capable of destroying the entire planet emerges, they must team up with a powerful faction of Transformers known as the Maximals to save Earth.
Transformers: Rise Of The Beast is directed by Steven Caple Jr. (Director of Creed II) and is the seventh installment in the Transformers live action films series this one is a sequel to Bumblebee (2018) and a prequel to Transformers (2007). After Bumblebee released in 2018 I was quite excited to see what the series would do next, Bumblebee is by far my favorite of the series and was quite honestly a very strong film.
Rise Of The Beasts is definitely a huge step down from Bumblebee but that doesn’t mean it‘s bad, there is a huge amount to really like here. Starting with the voice performances all of which are quite well done particularly Peter Cullen who once again absolutely nails it as Optimus Prime and shows that he completely owns the live action version of Optimus Prime. Peter Dinklage plays Scourge who gives an intimidating as well as fun performance as the villain, Michelle Yeoh as Airazor is quite great and Pete Davidson as Mirage is surprisingly a whole lot of fun and brings a lot of heart to the film.
Unfortunately Anthony Ramos and Dominque Fishback aren’t particularly great, they do the best they can with what they are given. But Fishback really isn’t given a whole lot to do other than just to move the plot forward and read symbols, while I do like what they were trying to do with Ramos’s character it just doesn’t get a whole lot of development to really matter in the end.
The action scenes are quiet great and get the job done, they are always entertaining with some atmosphere thrown in with a lot of admittedly very neat moments that do help the movie shine through, the Maximals outside of Airazor and Optimus Primal are largely given a backseat here, it’s a bit of a shame since I loved the Beast Wars cartoon growing up, but at the very least they were actually there and joined in the final battle. Speaking of taking a backseat Colman Domingo as Unicron is a bit wasted, while he was great in his performance he is really not in the movie all that much. I understand why they took the route they did with Unicron, but that doesn’t make it exactly great either.
The final act kind of falls into the typical blockbuster beats with one moment in particular that is incredibly stupid (having to do with Anthony Ramos’s character) and the ending is just flat out bad I won’t spoil it here but it comes right out of nowhere and I truly can’t help but feel like this was a last minute studio decision.
Overall Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts is quite enjoyable, it’s heavily flawed but it’s entertaining enough to give a pass. If you can ignore some writing flaws and such you will have a decent time with this one.
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts is playing in theaters.
After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence. However, when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders. He must soon redefine what it means to be a hero so he can save the people he loves most.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a sequel to the 2018 film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a film that was and still is incredibly groundbreaking, it opened a lot of doors and inspired several films that have used a very similar animation style such as The Bad Guys (2022) and Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (2022), it was also quite a fantastic film that grew a huge fanbase very quickly and is often regarded as one of the best comic book films ever made.
Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse had some huge shoes to fill and not only did it surpass expectations the film is one of those sequels where it could be argued that it’s even better than the first film. For starters the voice acting is once again phenomenal Shameik Moore as Miles Morales is like last time excellent, he completely captures the character and even goes further with him when it comes to character development. There’s so many moments that truly make Miles such an incredible character and why he’s become such a beloved character so quickly. Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen is also excellent here, we get to see more development of her character and the bond between Gwen and Miles is just absolutely beautiful and quite touching as well. It’s the little details of their characters that truly shine in this film, other performances that really standout include Bryan Tree Henry as Jefferson Morales, Luna Lauren Vélez as Rio Morales, Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, Jason Schwartzman as The Spot, Daniel Kaluuya as Hobie or Spider Punk and Oscar Isaac as Miguel O’Hara or Spider-Man 2099. All give fantastic performances that contribute something truly special to the film in their own way.
The animation style is truly fascinating, not only has it stepped it up from the last film but it also includes many other different styles as well, which make for some very entertaining scenes. The Spot is truly an interesting villain and although we don’t exactly get a whole lot of information on him, we do get just the right amount to tell how quickly he can go from a villain who’s a laughing stock to quite an intimidating villain that wants destruction. Oscar Isaac does such a fantastic job as Miguel O’Hara he’s intimidating and completely makes the character his own in every single way possible, the interactions between him and Moore are truly some of the very best moments of the film that I truly can’t wait to see more of in the sequel.
The film itself is a huge love letter to the Spider-Man character, there are tons of little references that are quite exciting to see and does it in a way that doesn’t take away from the film’s story, I’ve shared my frustrations in the past about films completely relying on easter eggs, but Into The Spider-Verse does not do that. Sure they are there but the film doesn’t rely on them to tell the story, the film uses them in a way that can both be exciting to viewer while moving the story right along without needing to focus so much on them.
The writing is truly fantastic with a lot character moments and development that help evolve the characters it truly does feel like the next chapter of Miles Morale’s journey, there’s a beautiful balance of humor and serious moments which include some quite fantastic lines from Shameik Moore. The film also ends quite well, while I can see some people having an issue with the way the film wraps up and it could come off as not feeling complete and relying too much on the next film. I don’t actually mind that all too much here, it ends at a quite strong moment that really does a fantastic job of setting up the next film.
Overall Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is a fantastic film that surpasses its predecessor, it takes what was so great and loved about the first film and does even more with it. One of the very best so far this year.
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is available in theaters.
Jerome Reviews... 